As usual the chickehouses are absorbing 90% of my time. My friend John who was helping us a few days a week quit. That has meant even more time here for me. Finding help for these houses is going to be a real hurdle. Nobody wants to work weekends or holidays. Thing is the chickens don’t take days off. I’ve found lots of folks who would work for cash, but I don’t want to get into that trap. Lots of people here are “disabled” and receive SSI, but still work a job for cash. Entitlements are draining this country and robbing our economy of employees. Why work for $7 or $8 an hour when the government will give you that much so you can “live”. For years I have seen my neighbors live better than me because they manipulate the system. It’s tough to know you have to work everyday while your neighbor who is “disabled” is pulling his boat all over creation to fish. At any rate holding fast to my belief that hard work and determination will get you through most things we have decided to build the second set of houses. That’s a tough pill to swallow because now we are able to do all the work ourselves whereas with 2 sets we will be dependant upon someone for help. I have always felt that immigrants took work away from US citizens, but am beginning to see that there are indeed some jobs folks won’t do. I find this especially in the agricultural world.

The rest of my time has been taken up rolling hay for folks. I finally broke down and took the twine tie box off the 6000 and installed it in the 7010 cab. That is a huge relief. No more coming home covered in hay dust and sneezing my head off. I get to ride around in the air conditioning instead of burning up too. I really don’t mind the heat, but I certainly don’t mind the air either. In this part of the country there are lots of hills. I’m finding the turbo on the 7010 especially pleasing. When the engine gets a good load on it you here the turbo whistle and away she goes. I’ve gotten nothing but compliments on the performance of the 7010. Unlike when I bought the 6000 people here are a bit more familiar with the Mahindra brand.

Looks like most of the kidding is done. We ended up with 4 babies to bottle feed. 2 of them are from a set of quads. That’s the first time I remember a set of quads being born. I’ve seen a few sets of triplets, but never quads. We took 2 of them as soon as we knew they got colostrum. I made the mistake of leaving a set of triplets with their mother too long and one died. Overall this has been a good kidding season though. We ended up losing 2 of 23. 1 of those was stillborn. That leaves us 21 to add to our herd, eat,Â or sell. I know atleast 2 will go for us to eat. There is nothing better than goat and noodles. A neighbor stopped and wants a young billy when they are weaned for her grandson. I’d rather sell them like that than have to take them to a sale.

Finally got my oak logs sawed into inch lumber. Now I have to find time to go pick up the lumber. There is over 750 board feet. Then I will need to find time to replace the weathered boards on my corrall. I put poplar on to start and that was a mistake. Poplar just doesn’t hold up out in the weather. I never seem to catch up on the farm work, but I am fast realizing that I have to step away from time to time if for no other reason than to refocus.

Well surely there is something I should be doing that’s a little more productive so I’ll go for now. Be sure to check out the new pics we’e added to the site and check back often to follow us through yet another journey down the twisty turny road of life here on the farm!

This entry was posted on July 4th, 2008 by joelw at 8:35 am and is filed under Family.
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24 Responses to “Here We Go Again”

I’m trying to get ready for the fairs. I feel like I am a million years behind. Thankfully my big yearling that I have to train is one of those “natural” show cows that just knows what to do. Makes my life a lot easier I tell yah what. And aww the babies are cute!

Is that a New Holland 258 rake in the pics? If so have you thought about putting the third row of teeth on it? Looks like you’ve got south africian boers, typically they only produce enough milk for one kid. That’s why a lot of people have switched to kiko’s as far as meat goats go or breed in dairy breeds. We raise Lamancha and Toggenburg dairy goats here. Goat kids are called bucks and does, not billy’s and nanny’s. Around here when someone wants to buy a kid we have for sale the price starts going up when they start calling them billy’s and nanny’s, because that gets on my nerves to no end lol. Is the gear selection any better for baling with the 7010 vs the 6000. I’ve got a 6000 that we pull a New Holland 634 4×4 round baler with and your either geared too high or too low. That’s the only flaw i’ve found in the 6000 is that the tranny leaves something to be desired. Good luck on finding some reliabe help.

Happy 4th of July to everyone, I hope you are all enjoying the holiday and suffer no mishaps!

Joel, what did the mill charge you for cutting your logs into usable lumber? There aren’t very many working small mills in my area, so what I find are guys with bandsaw mills. Most of them charge by the board foot, and when I do the calculations it comes out just about as cheap for me to buy from one of two mills about thirty miles away. I was also wondering why you went with one by material instead of two by. Whenever I build a corral I usually use two by because the one by doesn’t hold up long (too many heavy wild steers; I used to feed out over 1000 head per year!). What I am wanting is some material for framing up a couple of sheds or small barns. (One for stock and hay, and the other one for machinery.) I’m getting tired of keeping my equipment out under the big shed and having to mess around with getting it in shape to work with.

My neighbor, Aarron is getting ready to sell his place and some personal property. I don’t know if it has anything to do with a divorce or a change in business. He bought roughly 15 acres next to me a few years back. It had a small house on it, which he just about doubled in size with an addition, and a nice 30 x 40 machine shop. He took down the lot fencing, and some of the cross fencing but left the waterers in place. I doubt it will bring what he paid for it, and put into the improvements. He paid about $6,000 per acre for the place, plus whatever went in to the house addition and shop, plus whatever the seller wanted for the additional value of the old house. If anyone is interested look up Davis and Bell Auctions and see if it is listed, it is set for sell on July 8th at 6:00PM. One thing I need to tell you is that he built the addition to the house over a hand dug 120 foot deep well that always produced enough water for my feedlot. (He filled it in before building) The big problem will be that there is no pond or creek on the property so you will either have to use water from the Public Water Supply District, or drill a new well, both costly options for raising livestock, or irrigating a truck garden when you consider there was a good well present.

Take care! My blackberry and peach cobblers are about ready to come out of the oven, and then off to my brother’s for a strip steak and prime rib cookout! (I’m supplying the beef and cobblers, he and his wife are supplying the other sides.)

My help for one set of my houses walked off two weeks ago and I can’t find anyone to replace them. You speak nothing but truth when talking about those wanting to work for cash so as not to mess up their SSI or those that don’t want to work weekends or holidays. Right now 3 of us are handling the 4 houses, two houses go out the 29th of July and the other 2 go out the 19th of August, I hope to find some more help before clean out or it will not be very much fun for the next few weeks.

paintsmh,
Thanks for the compliment on the babies. Don’t know how I ended up with so much black in them. Black Boers are very sought after. Funny thing is I prefer the red. Been in the market for a solid red buck.
Good luck getting that yearling ready for show!

David in Ga,
Yep it’s a NH 258. I haven’t thought of adding the 3rd tooth to the bars. Does fine as it is. I just picked it up at the end of last season so I haven’t got to use it much. I too have thought of going to a different breed of goat. Boer’s just aren’t good parents. I have a couple Saneens (? spelling) and a Nubian. They are wonderful mothers! Doesn’t seem to be much selection in my neck of the woods. Pretty much everyone has Boers. I would buy some different breed if I could find them reasonable.
The 7010 has 16 forward and reverse gears. There’s a gear for everything. I always rolled in 4th low with the 6000. I agree a 12 speed tranny would be a desirable option. The newer 20 series tractors have 12 forward and reverse.
Thanks for the comment!

Kevin,
I got a neighbor and friend of mine to cut the oak with his band mill. I rolled hay for him a few weeks back. He charged $170 for about 800 ft. I got one inch because I’m going to use part of it to build with. I want to build a round pen for horses and a pig pen. Plus the corrall posts are old and I figured the oak would last longer than the posts. I’m pretty much just patching. I don’t keep wild cows either. A month here on the farm with Madison and PBR bulls would be whipped. She has such a way with animals.
Has it dried out up your way any?

mlytc,
3 of you handling 4 houses. That sounds rough. Being close to the end of the flock helps. It also adds the burden of not knowing what you’ll do for cleanout though. I need to start advertising for help now for the second set. Have you tried getting immigrant labor? I’ve been told that the unemployment rate is too high here. Doesn’t matter how many people are unemployed if none of them want to work! It does not look good for our country!

sheila,
I have registered Boer goats. Pound for pound they bring more than cattle and do better on rough pasture and browse. They are pretty hard to keep in a fence, but I really enjoy them. If you have a place to keep them pick up a couple and give them a try!

If you can afford to I recommend putting the 3rd tooth on. The teeth are pricey I think they were $4.36 each when I priced them at the dealer. But luckily I found some on ebay that I was able to buy and get shipped for just a little over $2.43 each for 64 of them. I have never seen a cleaner hay field than the ones I have now after installing the 3rd tooth on the bars. We had a saanen once and she was a milking machine, personally I hated her but the wife loved her.

Depending on how far you want to have to ship one I know of a farm up here (I’d have to check with my college prof and see if they are still in business) that sold the school a pure red buck. He made good kids too. They might still be in business and have another.

Things have dried out some, but we are still getting a little rain every three or four days. Most of the fields are green and have plenty of moisture. I saw where there has been a lot of hay cut and baled, unfortunately some of it looks like straw. A number of the guys have combined the seed off of thier fescue and cut the rest for hay. Those fallow fields I sent you pictures of have been no tilled back into beans, one field he had a seeder in it. I’m not sure if he was drilling in milo or what he was doing with it. Some guys will drill beans, but he had been using his planter on most of it.

Normally most of the cattle we fed were from local farms and pretty gentle but we would occaisionally get in range raised cattle out of New Mexico. Those steers had no idea what a fence was or that humans walked on two legs. Most of the time they had been worked with horses and had enjoyed fields of 660 acres or more. Big change for them when they got into a dry lot.

Too bad you can’t get someone interested in working for you. I understand that many of the big dairy farms have had to resort to hiring immigrants from Europe. Most of them had experience in dairy operations, but were facing problems with unemployment and high costs for setting up a new farm so they came here in hopes of getting a start. With the world economy like it is, I doubt if some of the people who were willing to come to the US will be as interested. (The dollar is very weak compared to the Euro, so why would they want to come and face a future with a devalued currency, rising unemployment, inflation and no guaranteed cradle to grave social service system?) That isn’t say that people from other parts of the world aren’t interested in coming here. After all the majority of Americans came here in hopes of a better life, and there are people out there who still dream about one.

Awhile back Countryside magazine ran an article by one author who discussed some of the dairy goat breeds. She listed them both by probable milk production, and also by temprement. It would be worth anyone’s time to try and read it who is interested in venturing into dairy goats, or introducing a dairy line into thier meat goat breeding program.

I tried to find immigrant labor, but blueberry season here is in full swing right now. I got 3 responses to my ad, so I will start talking to folks Monday morning.
I’m assuming that you have what we consider a grandparent farm, is that correct?

Looks like you have your hand full Joelw,two houses you will realy have your hands full.We are getting ready to start secound cut here we should be cutting about thursday morning if all goes well it should be dry for three days yipee.mom and dad are here for a week to help out my wife went back to driving for the company we were leased to when we had the wreck she is driving one of there trucks so theres no payments to worry about.Me and dad spent the first part of the week switching his 46 farmall h over to 12volt from 6. it starts alot faster that way also has enough power to run all the lights we put one the tractors to work at night.some of what we have to cut will still be first cut but alot of folks are doing that around here was to wet to cut alot of first cuts.we are thinking real hard about starting to do some 4×4 round bales as well more stuff to buy such is the life lol. we are down to 3 of 8 bulls we bought all the rest died off so back to the sale barns we must go for more.you got some real nice pics we haent had time to put any thing new on our pages.we also put a new toung jack on the haybine the old one was gone when we bought it.We have a bore goat and he dose ok we also have a nanny but not to sure what breed she is but she seems to be ok too. the billy didnt care he was happy to have a female around, lol. As bad as it sounds migrant help normaly will work circles around american help the mexicans are real hard workers the big farms in cal. use them all the time and I would prob. hire a mex before id hire an american sounds bad but the american work force has gotten real lazy.the companys that use migrant help must show I N S that no americans want the jobs they will fill with migrant help before the are aloud to hire them.so no they reay are not taking jobs from americans they take the jobs americans dont want thats another reason so many companys have moved out of the U.S. we as americans have done this to our self its not real all that cheap its just they cant find help here any more thats why they move and alot of time there product goes up in price.if we want companys to stay or move to the usa we need to show them we are the best choice till that happens we r going to keep losing jobs to the other guys. well I need to get off the soap box and go to bed sorry to go so long hope all is well for all till next time god bless you all.

Amen to the comments on SSI and migrant workers. If entitlements aren’t reformed they’ll bankrupt our country. Meanwhile, too many folks demonize the mostly hardworking folks who work in places like Monticello, KY at jobs most Americans would never take.

Your comments are a reminder that public policy plays a huge role on farmers’ lives.

Well, what I found interesting as to “what jobs an American would or wouldn’t do” was illustrated this past winter. One of the big meat packing plants that got caught by INS with about half of its work force being illegal immigrants wound up having to replace the lost workers with local Americans. What they found out was that if they raised the pay rate by two dollars per hour they had something approaching 50 applicants to each opening. I know farmers generally can’t compete with the wages paid by large corporations, but it goes to show, if you aren’t able to provide enough pay and benefits to your American workers, you will be in a situation of not being able to get them to leave the government relief lines.

Right now Congress is contemplating lengthening the amount of time people can be on unemployment. Personally, with the way the economy is, I think it would be better to either cut the amount of time they get benefits, or provide employers with incentives for hiring workers who have been out of work for an extended length of time, or who lost jobs as the result of plant/business closures.

Right now, with the devalued dollar, we would be better off if we could get investors to quit monkeying around in the fuel futures markets and put thier money back into businesses. The smart move would be, ramp up US production of goods that are in demand in the countries with stronger economies. Right now the Europeans are coming to the US to buy US goods because they are cheaper, and usually better quality, than what they can get at home. We are even seeing Canadians coming down to buy things in the US, because the Canadian and US dollars are either near parity or the US dollar is weaker. Unfortunately, most of the investors are thinking about short term gains rather than long term investment. A lot of that is because of the way our tax system is set up, but a lot of it is also due to greed and impatience.

I was looking at Boer goats. arent they expensive ? I was seeing around $200 If it stopped at that for a goat. Did you sell them as kids or adults, @auction or as registered stock? My neighbor has Saanan goats . I guess if I get any billies I better keep him in. LoL Sheila

David,
I\’ll keep that in mind about the hay rake teeth. I think Tractor Supply Compay carries them. First order of business is to replace the dolly tires. As pricey as hay is getting I need to get every blade of grass I can from the fields.
Our Saanen usually has triplets and takes care of them good. This time it was quads and I just didn\’t want to chance it so we are bottle feeding 2.
Thanks for the comment! Check back soon!

paintsmh,
Thanks for the offer, but I think I am going to try to get away from the Boers for the most part and find some Kiko\’s or maybe a Meatmaster cross. With hay and grain so high we have talked about selling off the herd and replacing it when we get a better stand of grass and more fencing done.

mlytc,
Yes we have Cobb grandparent stock. Right now it\’s the Cobb 500, but there has been talk of some Cobb 700\’s coming. Not crazy about that because they say the males are really aggressive. Good luck with finding help. Here there are very few jobs, but even fewer people who will work. I\’m hoping to pull a rabbit out of my hat for the next set.

Jim,
It will actually be 4 houses. We build these in sets of 2. Right now I have 2 40×400 houses connected by an egg gathering area. What happened to your calves?
I\’m not willing to place all the blame for the current immigration situation on American workers. While I agree that there are a lot of lazy americans and a lot of immigrants who will work circles around them, you know companies abuse this. They open up shop and pay real low wages. No american wants the job, not because of the job, but because of the wage. That\’s fine except 99% of the companies can pay more, but they have to give some cat somewhere in an office a big salary and stock options. If the company cannot pay more that\’s one thing, but to purposely pay a reduced wage so as to exploit the locals and immigrants alike is just plain wrong. Believe you me there is a lot of it going on too. How do we fix it? Well I\’m not exactly sure, but if you would take away some of the entitlements I bet you\’d see alot more people going to work. Now I know folks are gonna say, no they would just steal. You handle that by passing a law allowing people to protect their property. None of this \”their life must be in danger\”. Plain and simple, make thieves afraid to steal. Democrat or Republican we have got to get a hold on this situation now while we still can or this country will not survive much longer. Here I have seen many families with 4 and 5 generations on public assistance. It\’s a cradle to the grave system that has to be changed somehow. Problem is too many politicians won\’t do anything because they\’d be running themselves out of office. News flash: The line is getting longer than the people supporting it!
Okay I\’ve had my morning rant! Feel a little better now. Thanks for the comment Jim, and hope you have better luck with your next round of calves!

Cyberhillbilly,
I couldn\’t have gotten out of the manufacturing workforce at a better time. The guys from Kingsford have shared some sour outlooks for the future and Kingsford with me. We dried the briquets with heat from our retort (where they burn the sawdust to make wood char)and when they were unable to run we could still run the rest of the plant and dry briquets on a diesel burner. The cost of diesel has gotten so high now that the plant stops unless the retort is running. If something breaks in retort you have a whole plant down waiting on it to be fixed. Only alternitives are send home the workforce or run the burner at an unprofitable margin. Neither is a good choice.
I\’m lucky that I can walk to work and have a fuel reimbursement plan with Cobb for the things here on the farm. I can only imagine the stress fuel prices are putting on the bottom line of manufacturers, distributors, and the like. The truck market is in the tank. Automakers scrambling to produce small cars at little or no profit margin just to keep people employed. We\’ve got the Dems tabooing energy from any source. No coal, no oil, no nuclear plants. Where are we going to get energy from? How does Al Gore expect to get all that electricity he\’s using? http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/gorehome.asp
It\’s okay though he\’s buying carbon credits to offset his massive usage. I got some carbon credits for sale Al! I just hope and pray someone will come along that can lead this country out of the mess it\’s in. McCain will have to do for now since neither party seems to want to put an electable candidate on the ballot. I can see it now, this just in, McCain will be your next president because more votes were cast against Obama than against McCain. That\’s right folks we are no longer voting for a candidate we are voting against the other one. Looks like Perot might be jumping in the race too. I like his new website: http://perotcharts.com/
Thanks for the comment! Check back soon!

Kevin,
I fully understand that there is a whole lot of monkey business going on with immigration. You can see that by reading my response to Jim. Somehow we have to make it beneficial for companies to invest here in the US.Â I don\’t care if new companies don\’t pay any taxes so long as they provide good jobs and distribute their wealth evenly. We have to recreate some of the jobs we\’ve lost. Thanks for the comment!

Sheila,
Registered Boers are going to be high. You can buy Boer crosses and unregistered Boers at sales reasonable. The goats seem to bring the most here when grouped together with others their age and sold in a lot. Mostly meat packers buying when they are sold like that. I think they call them graded. I\’ve sold mine every way imaginable, kids, does, trios, and any other combination you can think of. Maybe you could try a few of your neighbors kids. Are you wanting them to resell or eat?

Tractor Supply carries the REGULAR teeth for $1.29 now, up from $1.09 in the spring. BUT the 258 takes a special tooth, it mounts on the back side of the bar as to where the other 2 are mounted on the front side. There is no aftermarket source for these teeth and that is the reason they are so high. The teeth are right hand teeth where the other 2 are left hand teeth.
On the goats it’s not wise to even leave twins on the boars because the milk production is so low that the 2nd kid may be getting little to no milk, very smart move the pull 2 of the quads. If you ever have any questions on goats just email me and me or the wife should have a answer for you or you can also go to goattalk.com and post any questions on there. To Sheila don’t buy any goats until you have proper fencing for them, because they will escape from most anything and if someone around here had boar’s and the buck got in with my girls he would be shot dead on the spot and the owner called to get his carcass. That’s just how it is sometimes. But don’t get goats and think a couple of strands of barbed wire will hold them in, you need page wire or cattle panels if you want to do it right and not be fighting with rounding them up all the time.

most likely have a few to keep a wood lot clean of multiflora rose . I would breed them than sell the kids ,probably @ auction . I doubt I would have the nerve to eat them myself. I can clean and eat anything else , just not goats , sheep or tame rabbits. We used to dress rabbit for my grandma, but i can eat a wild one . for some reason that is different. Ha Ha Sheila

Joelw, You are very right on the work force I probley should have explained my self better.You said what I did not to a tee. we are not to sure what happend to the calfs They just up and died they were with our other stock and they did fine we fed them and waterd them just like all the rest but the new ones died not to sure what went on. Thouse are very large houses our feed barn is 30X100 and our horse barn is 50×60 it was bilt to house draft horses well best of luck with the new houses and you are speaking the truth about the govermant asstance ive never used it and never will id like to s.s. taken out and let us take care of our own retirments my disabilaty ins that i collect is a private ins company that i bought insteaed of state run work comp and they pay any and of the things my docs say i need with no preapovels.It blows state run comp away by far.
Shelia, i get goats in ohio and ky, for $25 and up i have a boar billy and a female that im still trying to figure out what she is. We keep them on a30 foot chain with a dog colar we use heavy dutydog chains and hook them to trees and move them as we need to they clear an area 60 feet in diameter in about 4 days most evrey one in our area does this so they dont have to worry about there fences also they work faster like that they can still play and do what ever they want with the chains on also nub. goats would be a good choice as well they are more tame than bores and seem to mother ther kids better than boers, well good luck with the goats and have fun with it.
well gotta get back to work yall have fun and god bless you all.

To Jim, putting them on a chain is handing them a death sentence if dogs get to them, they will not be able to get away or to protect theirselves. Personally I’d reccomend staying away from Nubians unless you like to hear them holler all the time. They are by far the noisest goats out there. Did you think about doing a necroupsy on the cows that died? I’d be extremely curious as to what took out 5 of the 8 you bought. Never know what your getting at the sale barn anymore.

Well, the weather here has turned off more seasonal (drier, with higher day time highs). Basically AC weather.

I was wondering if anyone has had experience with any Angora goats? I remember a great uncle of mine used to keep a few to help keep the wooded hillsides around his farm cleared of brush and understory. They did a really good job, and from what I recall he used to get a small subsidy check for the production of the hair. (You shear them annually, like you do sheep.) Just another idea for Sheila to look at, get some brush clearers, plus get a pay check from the sale of both kids and hair.

I’ve got to agree with most of the sentiment towards the SSI program. What had me when I drove a school bus was the seemingly growing number of parents who did everything they could to get thier children classified as “disabled” in order to collect a monthly check. Personally, I have nothing against people getting assistance when they truly need it, but to encourage a child to misbehave and not apply themselves in school, in order for them to get “diagnosed” as having ADHD (attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder), is totally crazy! What ends up happening is the parents collect the money until the child is either put out of school or the child turns 18, then the young adult turns around and applies for SSI on thier own, without ever working a day in thier life! If they don’t go on SSI they just end up sitting around drinking and smoking pot (which they do even when drawing SSI) and to support themselves they get involved in crime (selling dope, and stealing). One boy I had on the bus route was one of the “untouchables”, (under the regulations imposed by the Federal government, a child diagnosed as having ADHD or another disability can not be disciplined in the same manner as a child who is not, generally they do not get any), wound up in the state pen after a series of thefts. This boy wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t unable to learn; he had parents who were more interested in sitting back and drinking thier 40 ouncers than they were in taking care of thier kids!

To me, the SSI program should be cut back to where that the people who need it, get it, and those who don’t are told to “find a job”. Back when it was started it was targeted at the elderly on Social Security retirement whose assets and checks were so small they were way below the poverty level. Then they added people who were disabled. When they did that it seemed like a fair deal, especially for the ones for had to leave the work force due to a career ending illness or injury, but then it went crazy. They added children who had never worked a day in thier lives, but who needed assistance due to the increased financial burden it imposed upon the family. Again, if it was something that truly causes a burden on the family, the assistance is a positive thing, but when they got to giving out money for misbehaving children, and adults who are alcoholics or drug addicts then it went totally out of control and needing immediate correction!

I hope everyone has a good week, no major problems, and you get some time to enjoy life!

Good to see things went well with the kidding and such. I know the thing you were saying about entitlements and such really tick me off a lot. I had some neighbors back a bit ago that had a really nice farm and of course did what they needed to when no one was looking – but generally they did as little as possible because they were getting paid a pretty livable wage to do nothing.

David,
I never thought about the dog problem all though we dont have to many dogs runing loose here it only takes one we ma try to go to a fence before long true nubs do holler alot we are still working on the goat thing to see if we want to raise them orjust keep a few for weed eaters.thanx for the info though.

Joelw and anyone eles,
looks like im going to be farming for life the doc. told me I cant drive trucks any more that my back was to far gone to drive and to risky to do surgery on bummer.glad all is going well for ya our baler broke down the other day so we been getting a friend to round bale it to get the rest of first cut done and its done to ya. hopto get it fixed this week wile its raining so we can start 2nd cut. by the way david we had 2 holsteens die and 3 jerseys die. i should have cut them open and took a look see but I did not do it maybe next time. well gotta go my 14 year old came and told me his 4 wheelers acting up well back to work god bless and good luck.

Sorry to hear that Jim’s back is in that bad of a shape. A lot of us truck drivers end up having some sort of back trouble; some of it is due to the job, some of it is aggravation or excelleration of other problems.

Jim, I was thinking about the goat thing, and it hit me that you could use stock panels and steel posts. Just move the pens around whenever you get an area grazed down. If you like how it works, you could make a series of paddocks connected by gates with a central shelter and water source (hydrant or fountain). This away you can rotate the area the goats are grazing, but still keep them in the same general area. If you want, check with your local extension agent for information on rotational grazing, they should have all kinds of information (even workshops) on the subject.

Well, we went into extremely hot weather here. Highs in the mid to upper 90′s, no rain, possible T-storms later in the week. Thankfully, no predictions of highs in the hundreds. Crops look good right now, we haven’t had enough wind to dry things out, but that could happen with just one or two days of winds over 20 mph, not uncommon here.

I’m sorry it took me so long to get around to thanking you for your kind hospitality and wanted to say I had a wonderful visit. I wish I could have stayed and helped out around there. I have found that my trip was a Godsend in my healing, I am now starting to look forward to moving on and getting on with my life. I wish I could get back to the land like you, but unless there is a complete collapse of our economy no one can afford it. I still follow your blog and look forward to your continued success and pray for your health and prosperity. I have seen first hand how hard you and your family work and you deserve to be successful. Take time to laugh, play, and love my friend. I will have goats one day, as soon as I figure out how!!